For my current book project, I'm looking for a few stories - four or
five at MOST - from people who entered embedded engineering through
higher education, but via nontraditional paths (i.e. something other
than BSEE, BSc, comp sci/electronics/etc. sorts of majors). For
example, I've heard several stories of people who started life with
advanced degrees in classical languages, but migrated into engineering
without actually sitting through a single electronics or software
class.

I'm _not_ looking for people who got into engineering without first
acquiring a degree; I have plenty of those stories already.

Please email me if you have an interesting tale. Remuneration
(commensurate with my poverty ;) is offered.

No urban legends or fiction, please - only personal experience. Your
name will not be used, and you will have the opportunity to review my
summary/paraphrasing of your story before it goes to publication.

In my previous job, there was an accountant who turned programmer.*SHE* migrated from accounting after helping out on a short-staffed
project. Her code was so well written that my boss decided that she
should be in the engineering department instead of accounting.

But her work was with the GUI client and not embedded stuff so it's not
what you're asking. But I thought I'd mention it since it's rare enough
to find a woman in my department but a certified accountant?!!

She ended up marrying the engineer in the cubicle next to her and got
promoted to team/project leader.

Who would be idiotic enough to leave a cushy number in the arts to work in
a high stress underpaid sector like engineering that is managed by a bunch
of know-nothing clowns ( the PHBs ) ? That's what I'd like to know !

I've noticed that with the two of my children who are fluent in
(Mexican) Spanish without ever having had a lesson. They're both also
very good at writing software, though the daughter prefers politics
;-)

my boss is a biologist, couldn't find a job anywhere, started in
embedded software with us through a contractor we normally work with
(anyone can write software, no?, don't know how she pulled that off), I
remember her first day, obvious she never programmed in her life, threw
a couple manuals at her and she caught on very quickly, after 6 months
she was better then everyone else.

One big difference I noticed is she's not "married" to any software
languages or operation systems or tools like most formally educated
software types unfortunately are. she uses whatever tools are necessary
for the job without preference which makes her very efficient, its nice
to not have that baggage